WFU Joint Physics and Chemistry Colloquium

TITLE: Lithium ion batteries: From practice to theory

SPEAKER: Dr. Paul R. C. Kent,

TIME: Wednesday October 31, 2012 at 4 PM

PLACE: Room 101 Olin Physical Laboratory

Advances in rechargeable lithium ion batteries have led to their near ubiquitous use in mobile devices. However, significant improvements in energy density, power density, lifetime, and overall cost are desired for widespread use in new applications such as in the automotive industry. This will require the modification and adoption of new cathode, anode, and electrolyte materials, as well as insights into lifetime altering mechanisms such as solid-electrolyte interphase formation. In this talk I will provide a gentle introduction to the fundamental physical principles of these energy storage devices, outline the challenging scientific problems that remain, and describe how quantum mechanics based simulations will be able to address some of these problems. I will also describe some of the fundamental problems with current modeling approaches and recent attempts to improve simulation capability on supercomputers.